Don’t make food a conflict for a vegetarian child

By Kelley Luckstein

If you're raising a child in a vegetarian household, power struggles and awkward social issues are bound to crop up.

Vegetarian parents may produce offspring who are curious about meat but worried that they will get in trouble with their folks if they eat it. That can be a stressful situation for a little kid, says Jennifer Nelson, director of clinical dietetics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.